One Headlight
by Amata Mercy
Summary: Because in life it doesn't always turn out the way we want it to, and it's not all great and grand. After we leave this world we don't see what we leave behind. This will try to reveal waht could have been a not so happy ending to it all. Who is speaking?


Trying a Dramione from another point of view. Try to guess which best friend it is. :D

Song is One Headlight by the Wallflowers... which are a part of my new obsession of finding songs to fit Dramione! *sigh* There are quite a few... LOL who knows if they all will right their own stories or pop in my other stories...

Disclaimer: I don't own! So please don't hurts me...

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His eyes were trained on the memorial in front of him, tears could no longer be formed as he viewed it, this was only one of a trillion times he had came here to visit, to sit, to think, and even at times to talk out loud and imagine that she would respond back to him. Sure he got that stinging sensation at the backs of his eyeballs, but no tears were produced from their ducts and if he did any type of mourning it was usually a dry sobbing. It struck him odd to think that even now after all this time he could barely accept that she was gone, that she had made it through that god awful war, for what? For this! To have it all end the way it did. Yet none of them had came out unscathed, perhaps they were to blame, they had ignored the signs that they were trying so hard to not notice that they let this happen.

Sitting at the bench next to it he thought solemnly it should have been him. Exactly what he thought it was that should have happened he was never quite sure. It was a mix of things really. Still every time he came it was always one of several recurring thoughts that constantly passed through his mind. Not just here, but anywhere, it took someone familiar, a simple mention of a name or thing, any type of trigger to bring it all to mind. A cool autumn breeze floated across the ground and chilled him to the bone, but he didn't move away, no there was still no closure. He had came today, what was it? Oh yes just to remember, to live through it all again, as if the first time hadn't been enough, as if tragedy didn't have it's grand time during that blasted war that it had to flaunt itself even more after its end. He clutched solemnly at the book she had written in, had left behind for them, to understand it all, to know why it had to be this way.

_**So long ago, I don't remember when**_

_**That's when they say I lost my only friend**_

The first memory to strike him though was of the memorial service they held, the funeral. Right here on the cemetery grounds, one she really shouldn't have been in, one they had argued against, one that had been her only wish, and one only they could appreciate. There had been many there for it, crying family and close friends, reserved respectful acquaintances, revered elders that had known her looked on gravely, and, of course, the many who were lost to see this happen to a hero of their time. It had affected very few as badly as him though, who had stood there at the grave long after it all trying to place blame on anyone, begging with anyone who would listen to bring her back. Feeling those standing a ways from him, waiting to know if he was going to be alright or if possibly they were looking at the beginnings of what would lead to another similar event as the one he was mourning.

Words from what was spoken at her funeral always resurfaced and inflicted him with more pain at the loss. They had said she'd died easy, but were they just saying that to make them all feel less guilty. For what, knowing what was going on or the part where they didn't stop it from happening? At times that question plagued him and he would sit for hours on end just wondering what he could have done, where he had went wrong. Then the worst was what they called a broken heart disease, so they all had been depressed but why hadn't they noticed how much worse hers had been. It had really hit them exactly what she had lost until they had gotten the simple little book he held in his hands now. How much it had all meant, and how much they had really fooled themselves into not seeing.

_**Well they said she died easy of a broken heart disease**_

_**As I listened through the cemetery trees**_

Distinctly he remembered sitting up the whole night before, unbelieving of exactly where he would be heading in the morning. It had been only two days before that they had told them, and he was sure none of the others could have slept easily or at all as well. It hadn't really taken him that long to get ready since he had started when it was still dark out, the clothes were all black, and who really cared what else he looked like. Truly all he had really done was slipped on the shoes, deciding to wear the same mournful black he had put on the day he found out, rumpled so what? Who really cared when the world you had deluded yourself into seeing was shattered in the matter of a few words. The drive there wasn't as long as it felt, a few minutes to what he could have sworn were decades from the car to stepping out to where the service would be. Looking up he had caught the first glimpses of the sun as it broke over the horizon of the morning.

Where had the justice been in all of this? She had been a good person, the best, saving so many, sacrificing every way asked of her and more. Perfection. That's what she had been, to everyone else it seemed that way. How could they have known the turmoil she had hidden so well away from the eyes of those who cared? It was then he had quit trying in his work at the Ministry, then when he stopped trying to ensure justice. Because where had been her justice? Where had been theirs? How could this be a justifiable means to and end? Nothing made sense to him anymore. Someone so innocent, so sweet, caring, loving, smart, and so many other things that made her the perfect humanitarian shouldn't have died like this. It should have been peaceful, like in old age, there had been so much left for her to research, and do, and make differences. Differences that he could no longer see in the future or could ever believe in actually happening without her, not in such an apparently unjust world.

_**I seen the sun comin' up at the funeral at dawn**_

_**The long broken arm of human law**_

All she had done now, all the future plans she had created before then and had left to them seemed pointless. Without her did she really think these issues could be resolved, or even matter to them. It was her fiery spirit that had kept him going that kept them all going really. That had kept the fight going, otherwise they would all give up in the struggles that seemed impossible, the struggles she had always taken on. It was all for naught now, even after so long he broke down at the simple mentioning of any issue that she had once pioneered or championed. Those were her battles and no one else was allowed to fight them, if she was gone then the issue had to remain, because to him she was the only one with the right solution to resolve them all. It was part of her just as much as that natural beauty he had always admired her for. Even when as a scrawny eleven-year-old girl she had held some natural understated elegance that made itself known as they matured.

It was at times when he sat here and wondered quite how she could hang around here, with them when so much could have made her life easier, even from the start. then he pulled out the diary's bookmark and flip it open randomly to a page. '_His hair is platinum I've decided, it glowed silver in the moonlight really. If the boys or Ginny ever knew what we did on those moonlit nights, let alone who I was with, well I'd say I wouldn't be writing this down. I love him so much, I don't think they would ever understand. Best to keep it secret for now. Sleeping with the enemy adds some excitement anyways, even if he doesn't want to be the enemy. He showed me his mark, it's not as ugly as it should have been in my mind for something to declare him to belong to this thing that's so evil. I showed him my own mark for the Order, mine was beyond words in beauty he told me, that I truly was a phoenix at lest in his eyes. I can't wait to tell the others, soon I think he will join us, you know. Then it will be safe, because the Order won't accept him without my voucher for him, he's been talking to me about trying to be a spy and has passed along things without ever asking about our side. I do love him so... it's hard to think how much more life means to me now sharing with him. Jeez listen to me rambling along like some mushy lovesick teen, it's far too fluffy for times of war...'_ That was always a topic in her entries, no matter good or bad, and a good reminder of why she had held on and how she ended up like this.

_**Now It Always Seemed Such A Waste **_

_**She Always Had A Pretty Face **_

_**So I Wondered How She Hung Around This Place**_

They all lived very muggle that day, even for the cemetery they had been going to, it was mainly for show for her muggle relatives. It was something about her being in the middle, always the median between being what she was born to be, a witch, and being what she was born as, a muggle. She was both the witch they loved, and the muggle her family loved. Yet she was something much better than that. It was like she had found the true balance of just being both. She had been a Cinderella in her own little fairy tale in his world as well as many others. She wasn't just the one who got the prince, she righted wrongs, bowled over prejudices, and showed the world that no matter what, it was who you were not what that meant something. All of them created this new peace together using those simple philosophies, and look they themselves weren't benefiting from it, not like they had imagined all along anyways, but it had all changed after the war was said and done.

When it all came right down to it, she was the one holding them together, keeping them sane, even though it was killing her to keep doing that for them. They hadn't paid attention to the times when she looked like she would breakdown or disappear in front of their eyes only to immediately issue their own problem hoping to cover up hers by letting her solve theirs. At the time it had made sense, they had gotten home. Sure there were losses but that had been expected, but they had made it. It was then he realized that his car lights were still on, one headlight blaring in his face, the other blown. That theory made as about as much sense as it was safe to drive his car home like that tonight. Living so muggle now just seemed to pull them closer though, like he could feel her, and at least if all else failed he always took the muggle way here. One headlight and all, it had been like that since the funeral, was he just now noticing?

_**Hey, come on try a little**_

_**Nothing is Forever**_

_**There's gotta be something better than**_

_**In the middle**_

_**But Me and Cinderella**_

_**We put it all together**_

_**We can drive it home**_

_**With one headlight**_

He remembered her the day after the war had ended when the true celebrations had begun. She had told him it felt like the muggle tradition of Independence Day, something that could have been very close to true. They were being freed from something weren't they, the old ways were being thrown off for the new. It had felt good in some ways, then and even now he could still feel it if he tried hard enough. To be honest at times it was hard feel much anymore, this war after the high of that one day had worn off on them, the supposed heroes, the reality set in, as the funerals began. A long procession that could seem to go on and on from a parade. He had stolen that from her, he did that a lot now, found himself repeating phrases she had coined herself. It was a parade no one had enjoyed, and everyone felt forced to attend, no matte how badly they just wanted to run from it all. They stood there and had to bear it, for respect of the dead and those they had left living.

Once he had asked her what it felt like. Like to lose so much, almost everything you once known, even if it was in exchange for a better tomorrow for the world as a whole. It wasn't hard to remember how dead those usual golden then a dirt brown as she stared into his eyes contemplating just how she would answer him. Turning from him he thought maybe he heard her voice catch a bit before she replied to him, but nothing stood out more that the lifeless voice she had as simply said "It's cold." after that they never tried to delve in like that, and maybe it had been the wrong thing to take from it, perhaps it had been her way of trying to get someone to realize she was hurting and it was coming to an end for her, one where she had to leave this world to escape from it.

_**She said it's cold**_

_**It feels like Independence Day**_

_**And I can't break away from this parade**_

Really though what had they saved, yes all the muggles and muggleborns from being killed, as well as blood traitors and many halfbloods as well. Yet the world was no less ugly to him, no less greedy. It was a maze of evil that now everyone was equal to scrounging through. Reconstruction after war time had really pulled everyone to the same level, no one was immune to it's awful sins and injustices. Now he searched constantly for a way out of it all. Was that how she had felt? She was always the smart one, had she realized this world's folly before they had even one slight recollection of what was going on around them? The answer had always been right there in front of them, they had just been to blind to see it or want to see it more likely. Wanting to see the world through those rose shaded glasses she never was quite able to put on. '_I loved my world, this world, but not as they saw it. I saw the blacks, the whites, and they grey areas in between. They saw different shades of rose as they peered through their glasses at world but only as they wanted it.'_

Resting his head against his hands he wondered if she had seen the way out of the maze for herself. Was he doomed to make the same choice she had? Flipping to another page he read what had looked to be a page he hadn't viewed in a long time. One with many tear stains though to litter the pages and blur her perfect scrawl of penmanship. '_Oh I'm so happy! I mean it's the middle of the war, but it's so hard to believe! He and I... we're having a child. I can hardly believe it even as I look at it written here on this page. I haven't told him, I don't want him to worry. I know it's dangerous for me, I've requested to be taken off front lines, the Healer has told me I'm rather far along, three and a half months actually. I gathered the information to test the sex and all, the healer isn't really needed. It's just I guess I had gotten so good at avoiding check-ups after battles that when I was forced into this one it was noticed. I had suspected, but wasn't ready to confirm it. It's going to be a boy and a girl, he would be proud. I've already named them, the boy, Scorpius Aerten, a constellation like his father and Aerton means battle ending, hopefully that will be true once he is born. The girl will be Harmony Aurora, Harmony was the goddess of order and means unity, Aurora was the goddess of sunrise and means dawn. I will love my children, and I know he will too.'_

_**But there's got to be an opening **_

_**Somewhere here in front of me**_

_**Through this maze of ugliness and greed**_

The sun is coming up I realize as it's rays dapple the pages through the trees. There's so much I can't recall that she has written and so much that I can. I remember those names flowing from her lips. Among the war they are just one of the many losses, so many people she cared for, so many that she wept at their sides during their last breaths. Death, she had seen so much of it, something we couldn't even protect her from, no one could avoid it. One way or another it came back around to us, to affect us, and there were times it seemed we just went through the motions not aware of anything but the dramas that rang out in our minds. A picture slipped from the pages, and for the first time in a long time a tear slipped from his eyes. It was picture of them sitting on a bridge. That damn bridge. He held her as she sat her legs swinging over the edge, her belly was rounded and his eyes were bright as a true smile spread over his face as his big hands settled over it proudly. If only they had all known what that bridge had meant, what it would mean.

She had believed in so much, everything had some good in it. That was what made her love him. '_All there is in this world is good, and yet there is an evil that resides so deep in that man. That so called Dark Lord has become the only evil in the world, the greatest of it all. Sometimes at night I wake up and I'm crying, nightmares that are only too real or too close to coming true are always vivid in my mind. I see him less and less now that he is on our side, he switched after I told him about the children, but still he's a spy which makes it so much harder to see him without blowing his cover. We fund this enchanting little bridge in the forest that we can meet at, it wonderful and he has taken such a liking to taking pictures whenever he can. I think he has the same fears as I do, that we'll lose one another in this damned war. Maybe, once this is all over we can move off to America and settle down in Salem's wizarding community. Lately, though, Harry's been so isolated, ever since Luna was captured when her family was attacked and then the Longbottom's too. That nothingness in his eyes makes them so dead. It's hard to know what to do sometimes... but I have my love and my babies...'_

_**And I Seen The Sun Up Ahead **_

_**At The County Line Bridge **_

_**Sayin' All There's Good And Nothingness Is Dead **_

America, she had wanted to run off to America, how he wished he could have seen that dream come true, maybe they all would be better off that way. How often he had dreamt of something close to the same for them all. It was truly an escapists dream. a fantasy envisioned in times when it seems like things can only get worse. His eyes scanned along the next page as the book flopped open in his lap. '_What I tell you now, is probably one of the worst nightmares that were real in this war. Why we had thought it would be safe to meet when we did I'll never know. It had seemed like such an innocent afternoon, nothing could mar its beauty, and in wartime it seems these are the worst days of all, because in war you can't have these days, and you know that eventually something is going to happen. It never occurred to either of us to put any protection around our secret little place, it was so out of the way who would be able to find it. Still they did. All I knew one moment he was smiling and then next I was being thrown into the woods, his voice screaming for me to run. I ran, and ran, and ran until my legs collapsed from under me. I tumbled across the forest floor and could still hear crunching footsteps following after me, my fear surged once more and I managed to fling myself down into a ditch. I curled up my hands clutched to my stomach where two lives thrived, and my only wish was that if I was captured they would allow them to live. Those evil men, they found me. It shall forever be seared into my mind that fight, I fought until i had nothing left, they sucked the life practically out of me, but still somehow I managed to continue to run, that's when I found him, dead and lifeless on the ground. Apart of me died in that time, in that place, and I swear no amount of spontaneous magic had ever caused so much destruction since. He had protected us and I would avenge him who I loved, who had given me something to love. Then the next day... the war ended. How impossibly awful it was.'_

His eyes just stared at her last few lines, and knew then more than ever how she could have gone made the decision she had, and why she had gone to that place. It was only hard to accept when he wanted it to be untrue the most, when he looked into those soft blue grey eyes or flashing golden ones, when he ruffled platinum or tousled chestnut curls. It was when he was faced with anniversaries of death, of destruction, of new life and old ones. It was only at times like these when he stood so close to making the same decision that he could understand her, understand them. The book slipped from his lap and opened to the last page, one he read only upon the most tragic occasions. '_I know that if you are reading this, that I have passed away from this Earth, and the demons that chained me to it. To those that I cared for, know it wasn't a lack of forethought on your parts that I met this end, but think of this as my ability to make for myself a peace. The little ones I have left behind, I place in the care of those most close to me, I know that you all could bring them more joy than I could in the state I have been living since those last few days of that awful atrocity we called a war. It was for him that I had lived all along, and it took me so little time once he was gone to realize it, and that of my children. Once the two remaining little beings had left my body and I had given them life, i realized I had none to live with them. Never should a mother be unable to truly take care of her children and yet I found no part of me could be motivated to do more than love them with all that I was. To my little ones, know always that your father and I love you more than you could ever know or measure, it is an unconditional love that sees no wrong, we are sorry that we could not have lived in your worlds with you even for more than a moment, but know if it had been in the realm of possibility we would have. It had com to my notice by a good friend, that my soul was dying faster than it could heal, that my heart had died that day, and that they had been the only things holding me to this life. I love you all, and never blame yourself.'_ A tear fell once upon that last little line and he tried to dab it away before it did damage and yet it now boasted a watery good bye, one he knew she did not leave them with.

Not too long ago she hit the end of what had been her journey on this world, with her little ones in capable hands she found it. Standing up on to the railing of that damnable bridge she flung herself down into the cold and icy depths below it. It had taken them a week to find her, but then again they hadn't found her, a stranger had and then they had been told. No one had noticed a new mother of twins had disappeared for a week, or were they all so used to tragedy that they could turn such a blind eye to the knowledge of what had really been going on.

_**We'll Run Until She's Out Of Breath **_

_**She Ran Until There's Nothin' Left **_

_**She Hit The End-It's Just Her Window Ledge**_

It was then that they cam to me, small and beautiful, everything they should have ever been if they had known her, if they had known him. Perfect images of the ones that had created them and first loved them, that would always love them. Two small hands picked up the book and closed it clutching it in her tiny arms, a protector of books like her mother, she carefully stepped back to hide a bit behind the boy. His little eyes boasted a true claim to who he was, as he kicked at the dirt and then looking past his mother's name on the grave stone looked to him instead. Holding out a small fist he demanded, "You've been here long enough, auntie says you need come home... She sent a real howler you know. Besides all your doing is messing up mama's book and her resting place with papa." His eyes then turned proudly to where his own father's name was carved and unlike his father he could know that the man he took pride in was a good man who had done great things.

He stood then placing comforting hands on small shoulders, he knew the girl didn't like coming here, and the boy was a constant protector of his counterpart, so tough. His mind flitted across memories of them both as he looked into their clean little faces, and he knew that their parents would be proud. On the inside of the cover of the book was a small little quote, he was never sure where it originated from but it had gotten her message across well enough, and it was hard at first to take it for what meant, he had to try a little for it to fit in his head. '_Nothing is forever._' That and in this world, he knew he was going through it with just one headlight like his car, just barely making it and hanging on.

_**Hey, come on try a little**_

_**Nothing is Forever**_

_**There's gotta be something better than**_

_**In the middle**_

_**But Me and Cinderella**_

_**We put it all together**_

_**We can drive it home**_

_**With one headlight**_

He thought of the place he at times called home and others hated worse for the memories it still held. It hadn't been hard to know he would end up taking a job there, they all had eventually. The place was just right for them all, Hogwarts was a place to love, but Grimmauld was a place to fit in. It seemed even this long after it all headquarters was still as busy, he lived here where they had been forced to grow up, but worked at the place where they had started out as children. All times now when walking into his room he tripped over another what was it, wine bottle, and then knocked over the ash tray spilling cigarettes everywhere, some muggle habits he found were hard to break once you started them. It was far from being organized, but then agin neither was his mind, so it went as they said one's room could be a reflection of their mind.

Sometimes though it was because of these places that he couldn't get anything done, it was just too much, too familiar. The ghosts of his past, haunted him in his mind just walking down the halls, and at times it was too much to try and ignore. He would sit and be lost for days on end until one of the little ones as they all called them found him and either nagged him until he got something done or criticized his weakness for letting it all get to him. Then he would be able to go back to his daily routine, be able to make it through a day or through work, they both were better reminders of the past than some of the ghosts. She would be love them all the more, he would surely have taught them all they know. It was amazing how he could walk across these wooden floors, and not think of her every second, because this was her room, it had been their room. How could he force himself to endure such torture, he would never understand, but someone had to do it, and in his mind he deserved it. He could have been there for them that day, just maybe he could have saved them from all of this pain, but just like Remus's favorite old truck, sometimes it just doesn't work like it should.

_**Well This Place Is Old **_

_**It Feels Just Like A Beat Up Truck **_

_**I Turn The Engine, But The Engine Doesn't Turn **_

_**Well It Smells Of Cheap Wine & Cigarettes **_

_**This Place Is Always Such A Mess **_

There are days when all I can think about, is burning this whole bloody place to the ground, because maybe just maybe they would be able to put some of their black past behind them and it would be easier to get through their lives again. There on the wall you could see the faces of the ones that were no longer there and still there were two that hung up there twice, for the order and the family tree and it brought more pain than comfort to them all, some love was never meant to be tragic it just ended up that way and no one will ever be able to grasp why. It's when I realize that all I really have is no one but me, and then even I'm not the one who I thought I should be. It felt like living in another persons skin and I know that my body hasn't changed, but who I am inside isn't the same. Then again who would be after all we have seen and had to do?

Once he started back across the grass and past all the perfect little rows did her grip in his soul seem to ease. Their little aristocratic faces lightened his heart a bit that maybe he could make it through the week. Because out here beyond the world that they now lived in, this one lace was outside the walls of a place that had once been a place for dreams. Only now did he understand what she had meant when she made the choice she had, what it meant to have a dying soul and know the death of a heart. it was even easier to know how two small little ones could hold you to a world you no longer had the will to live in. The girl turned to look up at him, Harmony Aurora, and his eyes dropped to the book in her arms once again. Across the front in a beautiful silver it was carved, _Hermione Jane Malfoy_. His heart hadn't beat in a long time, but looking into her eyes and seeing that name so close was like seeing a vision from the past. "Come on, blunderhead, we don't have all day, it's still dark enough that the cops can tell we only have one headlight." That was Scorpius Aerten, and as their gazes met, the famous Malfoy steel eyes met his with a fierce sneer, and he could have sworn Draco was standing there too. Just maybe her death would be what killed him.

_**Sometimes I Think I'd Like To Watch It Burn **_

_**I'm So Alone, And I Feel Just Like Somebody Else **_

_**Man, I Ain't Changed, But I Know I Ain't The Same **_

_**But Somewhere Here In Between The City Walls Of Dyin' Dreams **_

_**I Think Her Death It Must Be Killin' Me **_

**Amata Mercy**


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